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The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Source
First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1933
Written
1933

About this quotation

Roosevelt said this at the start of his presidency, with a quarter of the American workforce unemployed. The full sentence continues: “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” It was aimed at the panic around bank failures rather than at fear in general.

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